three ways of meeting oppression essay

Three Ways of Meeting Oppression Essay

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As explained by institutional theory, people tend to adhere to traditional institutions despite the presence of far better and more efficient alternatives due to their belief that with age comes stability and as such would be a better choice than an untested and potentially unstable system.

One example of this can be seen in today’s social institutions wherein in one way or another people still adhere to practices related to competition and competitive behavior wherein society today is often described as a “dog eat dog world” defined by inter and intra social competitive behaviors and traditions.

This is evident in the U.S. social system today where individuals actively compete against each other in various aspects related to work, social standing and a variety of similar situations all of which involve individuals working towards “getting ahead.” The concept of “getting ahead” is so ingrained in American society today that it is a ubiquitous concept adhered to by a large percentage of the population all of whom want to “get ahead” of their fellow man.

This, of course, has created a distinctly individualistically oriented society wherein instead of a sense of community people develop behaviors concerning the improvement of one’s own life instead of the community itself. What must be understood is that competition often results in limitations being placed on particular social classes in terms of the type of opportunities they are given, the communities they can belong to and the types of jobs they can have.

This, of course, prolongs the social condition of people thinking in an adverse competitive way in their desire to get ahead; this shows how the idea continues to propagate in between social classes and becomes an almost everyday fixture in the lives of nearly all individuals within the society.

Due to the fact that people think in relation to how a particular activity will help them achieve their own quality of success rather than that of others, this has resulted in people rationalizing society and life itself as an active competition divided between winners and losers, with winners standing on the top of society’s ladder with the losers well below them.

This has resulted in the development of distinct societal attitudes akin to prejudice and discrimination wherein people on the top of the social ladder believe themselves to be superior due to the “winning” in life’s competition. The reason behind such actions is due to the concept of Speciesism which is based on the belief that the category a particular individual or group belongs to is inherently superior to all other groups (Singer, 567).

All this does is create distinct divisiveness within society which is already plagued by various lines drawn upon the figurative sands of race, class and economic distinction. While it is true that a certain degree of healthy competition encourages people to be more proactive and diligent however the fact remains that the current type of societal competition that is currently being advocated has resulted in distinctly negative results and as such should be changed to create a more cooperative and progressive society.

As indicated by Martin Luther King Jr. in his essay “Three Ways of Meeting Oppression” it is often the case that people tend to accept the social situation they are and live in it rather than fight for a better kind of life. In such cases, this only promotes the action and allows it to continue in succeeding generations.

The current prevalence of adverse competitive attitudes in society today is evidence of both the assertions of King and of the tenets of an institutional theory which show how people tend to merely accept the way things are rather than institute change for the better. It is based on this that what is needed is to respond to the current competitive system within society by establishing new social institutions that encourage cooperative action and positive competition.

Instead of a dog eat dog world what should be advocated is a society where instead of attempting to get ahead of other people for the sake of being ahead a better approach would be to improve oneself for the betterment of society to help improve the community for the better. This can be done by removing the societal notion that getting ahead is the only goal in life and replace it with the notion that the through cooperative and community-based action people can achieve great things.

People in society today always seem to think that attaining a particular high ranking position, gaining a lot of money or having valuable possessions is the goal everyone should attempt to reach. The only problem with such a goal is that it, as mentioned earlier, encourages disreputable practices, individualistic thinking and a form of crab mentality.

The other response that should be done is to implement new legislative measures which enable more significant social and racial equality. One of the main reasons behind societies competitive practices is the fact that social and economic situations often prove such practices as being justified given the resulting beneficial effects they have on the lives of people who are “winners.”

By enacting new legislative measures in the form of tax breaks, government assistance and educational assistance for minorities beyond what is being implemented today the end result would create a greater degree of equality between minorities and the majority in terms of economic status which should lead to the development of new societal ideas where the concept of equality within a community seems better than living a life of success yet being relegated to a life of individuality.

Works Cited

Singer, Peter. “SPECIESISM AND MORAL STATUS.” Metaphilosophy 40.3/4 (2009): 567-581. EBSCO. Web.

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Martin luther king jr., three ways of meeting oppression.

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How Martin Luther King, Jr. Used Nietzsche, Hegel & Kant to Overturn Segregation in America

Martin Luther King Jr.

Student Question

Describe King's three methods of meeting oppression and why he favors nonviolent resistance.

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According to Martin Luther King Jr., there are three ways to meet oppression: acquiescence, physical violence, and nonviolent resistance.

Acquiescence is an attitude the oppressed exhibit when they "resign themselves to their doom." King insists that some people prefer to remain oppressed rather than confront injustice. When Moses attempted to lead people out of slavery in Egypt, he found that not all slaves were willing participants in the journey. King also acknowledges that some people are so "exhausted" by oppression that they passively accept their circumstances because they have given up.

Others who are oppressed turn to violence. King cautions against the use of this strategy because it "never brings peace" and instead results in only "temporary victories." Violence creates more problems instead of solving them; it tears communities apart and creates "bitterness in ... survivors and brutality in ... destroyers." King insists that using violence leaves a legacy of chaos to future generations.

Therefore, he strongly supports nonviolent resistance as a means of creating social change. Nonviolent resistance, he contends, reconciles the opposing natures of acquiescence and violence. It insists that violence must be recognized and resisted yet doesn't stir feelings of hatred, which occur with violence.

Nonviolence also asks others in the community of "good will" to join in the fight for equality. King insists that social integration can only be achieved within the realm of peaceful resistance, which creates stability instead of anarchy. This type of resistance also lessens the fears of white people who are apprehensive about social change, demonstrating that they have nothing to fear; instead, Black people seek justice by "molding public sentiment" through peaceful behaviors.

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A Rhetorical Analysis of Three Ways of Meeting Oppression, an Insightful Essay by Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The Ways Of Meeting Oppression By Martin Luther King Jr.

In "The Ways of Meeting Oppression" Martin Luther King, Jr. states how people deal with oppression and how effective those responses are. He states that people deal oppression in three characteristic ways. The first one being acquiescence. The oppressed accept their way of life and become accustomed to it. He compares the civil rights movement to Moses leading out the slaves from Israel in which the slaves at the time did not want to escape. King states that "To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed has become as evil as the oppressor." King says "A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression, is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred." he says that violence

Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail By Martin Luther King Jr

In response to the accusation of being an outside agitator, King said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (Evans 32). He mocked the notion that he was responsible if nonviolence provoked violence from those in authority. "Isn't it like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated an evil act of robbery?" (Evans 32).

Annotated Bibliography On Martin Luther King Jr

Thesis Martin Luther King, Jr., through the use of eloquent writing and appeals to emotion, refutes several local religious leaders' criticisms of the his and the SCLC's outside involvement and nonviolent direct action taken to draw attention to and build support for the end of segregation, not only in Birmingham, but all of the United States. Main Points First King refutes idea that he is an outside agitator that doesn’t belong in Birmingham, as he and several members of his staff were invited to the city by a local affiliate organization of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He also asserts that his involvement there is valid, as “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” as communities are connected and affect each other indirectly.

Summary Of Letter From Birmingham Jail By Martin Luther King Jr

In the essay named “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Junior, He uses many great approaches to many different problems faced in his time. The fact that he wants to use a nonviolent approach to solve these problems is not only an admirable thing to do but also the right thing to do. Instead of using violent means to make his points, he instead uses things such as sit-ins, marches, boycotts, and many other ways to peacefully make his point. This in turn breaks the cycle of hatred between the races at that time. If he had used other means, then the problem would have only escalated and gotten worse.

Confront Injustice In Martin Luther King's Letter From Birmingham Jail

Confront Injustice Martin Luther King Jr. was an ordained minister and one of the best known civil rights leaders. He worked very hard to end segregation and injustices in the south. While participating in a program of sit-ins at luncheon counters, the famous theologist was arrested. In consequence King wrote, “a Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which he addressed to a group of white clergymen in an attempt to demonstrate the justices of his views. Within the letter King describes an unjust law as, “a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself” (259).

Summary Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

By doing this we see King take a position of calmness and understanding, rather than aggressive and attacking. This correlation of a perspective justice leading to injustice, is a prominent feature throughout history, which makes King’s claim transcend not only the original audience, but time as well. I fully support King’s claims, especially when looking at the world he describes, while comparing it to now and seeing how little certain things have changed. Summary:

An Analysis Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, uses the lense of social power in order to get his thoughts across. Social power is the degree of influence that an individual or organization has among their peers and within their society as a whole. This idea is illustrated throughout his letter to show the significance of the disabilities and unfair treatment the black community has faced for the entirety of their existence. African americans have never been able to gain the respect from others they deserve due to the idea that other races have more power on them simply due to the color of their skin. Martin Luther King is able to express these ideas by referencing multiple examples as to how social power has negatively affected their societal presence for many years.

Martin L King Letter From Birmingham Jail

In the 1950s and 1960s, it was evident that racism was at its all time high with African Americans being lynched, segregated, and most of their rights taken away. According to the Washington Post, Researchers concluded that 3,959 black people were killed in multiple Southern states between 1877 and 1950. The injustice that was occurring in the United States is what fueled Martin L. King Jr to prevail and expose the issues. In his letter from Birmingham jail, he argued about many of the issues one specifically was the christian churches. In order for him to get his point across, he highly expressed upon nonviolent direct action, he used many profound examples of the injustice, and he showed anger towards his religion.

1960s Dbq Analysis

“…the ultimate weakness of violence… It doesn’t solve any problems” (Document J) King raised as a Christian believed that violence was the root of all the problems and if they fought with violence nothing would be achieved. He wanted his followers to protest peacefully to the white’s unruly actions for of his faith violence was never the answer. “…we cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws” (Document H) Stated by Martin Luther King in Stride toward Freedom, he wanted told the whites that the black community will revolt against the laws.

A Rhetorical Analysis Of A Letter From Birmingham Jail.

He does this by using lines such as “When you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim”. By using this kind of incendiary language and sentence structure he lets the audience envision how horrible it would be to see this happening to you or your own friends. Through the emotions he provokes, King is able to pursue the reader to hear what he has to say about these outrage of acts. King asserts negotiation is the best way to resolve problems, but when it was not an option on the table, he obliges to confront injustices using nonviolent direct action. He emphasized “the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.

1960s Dbq Essay

During the late 1950s and 1960s the southern states in America were segregated. Black and white people were separated from bathrooms to schools and therefore, blacks had to use their installments or they would be punished by whites. While this was happening, two African American men, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, wanted segregation to come to an end. So they proclaimed their ideas and started to form groups to protest against segregation in America. Consequently, Martin Luther King Jr’s civil rights philosophy made the most sense during the 1960s because integrated schools was the goal, nonviolence could have a huge impact on the enemy and nonviolence was the only practical strategy.

Civil Disobedience In Letter From Birmingham Jail

King values civil disobedience, which is the refusal to obey certain laws or governmental demands by nonviolent techniques as boycotting, picketing, and nonpayment of taxes, but the violence created from that is not his fault. Logic is key in this situation because its obvious you shouldn't punish someone who isn't being violent. Another example is, "We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal. . . ."

Letter From Birmingham Jail Thesis

King's constant claim that the Civil Rights Movement is a fight for justice, not only an end to racial segregation, supports this viewpoint. King's famous quote, "Injustice everywhere is a menace to justice everywhere," demonstrates his vision of the fight for freedom as a fight for justice. In other words, King understands that everyone's rights are at stake in the fight for freedom, not just those of African Americans. King's critique of the white moderate emphasizes the significance of initiative and dedication in the fight for freedom. Lukewarm acceptance, according to King, is more confounding than outright rejection since it downplays the importance of the battle and upholds the status quo.

Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Stride Towards Freedom

He does this to inspire action upon people to create change by using nonviolent resistance. King uses rhetorical devices, such as ethos, pathos, and logos, to support his argument. One of the ways he shows how people deal with oppression is acquiescence. He does that by using ethos, specifically he uses allusions like when he uses the allusions to the Bible and Shakespeare.

Annotated Bibliography: I Have A Dream By Martin Luther King Jr.

Marisol Jaslyn Pena Professor Caleb Camacho English 1302 February 15, 2017 Annotated bibliography Argument: The next future generation must be persuaded to stand up for what they believe in and not be too scared to make a change in the world. They need to leave their mark in the world.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham City Jail

The Civil rights movement was a long and hard fight for freedom in our nation. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the many people who devoted themselves and fought for the movement. He did it in hope to make the world a better place. Outraged and indignant, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham city jail” addresses the events that took place in the name of freedom. Martin Luther King Jr. reflects on the events, through his use of tone, rhetorical appeals, and rhetorical tools.

More about The Ways Of Meeting Oppression By Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King’s Three Ways to Meet Oppression

Oppression is the state where one is subjected to cruel and unjust treatment. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an activist, spoke largely on oppression and classified three ways in which oppressed people can deal with their oppression. These three ways include; acquiescence, violent, and nonviolent resistance. However, from his text, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. largely emphasizes a nonviolent strategy is the best option to combat the evils of oppression in any system. This is because the nonviolent strategy has moral importance compared to acquiescence and violence.

The text by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. mentions acquiescence as the first way to meet oppression. Acquiescence is seen as a way where the oppressed play along with the oppressive system as they view it as an effortless way to survive instead of challenging the system. In so doing, the oppressed people choose to endure oppression instead of seeking liberation from the oppressors. He says, “One way is acquiescence: the oppressed resign themselves to their doom,” King writes, “But this is not the way out. To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor.” (King Jr., 1958, p. 1). To support his argument, King gives the Bible analogy where while Moses was delivering the children of Israel from their bondage in Egypt, he noticed that they exhibited signs of hostility toward their rescuers. This is attributed to them being so used to slavery and unwilling to welcome change. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also goes ahead to support his argument by giving an analogical example of a negro guitarist in Atlanta. From the guitarist’s play, there is a clear indication that the oppressed get comfortable in the hands of the oppressor to an extent where they do not feel aggravated by the situation.

However, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. emphasizes that acquiescence should not be the way out when facing oppression. He advocates for the oppressed to stand up for themselves against oppressive systems. For the oppressed, going against the oppressor makes them equal to the oppressors in upholding immoral behavior. Hence, it is clear that the oppressed condones and justifies the oppressors’ actions. Therefore, acquiescence should not be resorted to as it is viewed as cowardly and heightens the actions of the oppressive system.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. mentions the second way to meet oppression is by being physically violent and having corroded hatred. He argues that violence and corroded hatred towards the oppressive system only provides a temporary solution. His argument has moral foundations as if the oppressed follow the violence to end oppression, then it is bound to bring about long-term resentment towards them. Since violence and corroded hatred towards oppressors is short-lived, the oppressed are more likely to receive severe consequences if they fail to deliver themselves from oppression. He says, “A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred,” King writes, but “Violence… is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all” and “It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert.” (King Jr.., 1958, p. 2). King then argues that the use of violence brings about generational bitterness. He urges American Negro and oppression victims not to fall into the trap of resorting to violence to liberate themselves from oppressors, as it is not the better option.

The third and last way to meet oppression, according to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is nonviolent resistance way. In line with this text, he asserts that the execution of nonviolent resistance is the best-preferred way as it is both practically and morally upright. He says, “The third way open to oppressed people in their quest for freedom is the way of nonviolent resistance,” writes King, “The nonviolent resister agrees with the person who acquiesces that one should not be physically aggressive toward his opponent; but he balances the equation by agreeing with the person of violence that evil must be resisted.” (King Jr.., 1958, p. 3). Nonviolent resistance seeks to stand up to oppression without engaging in violent actions. King strongly advocates for this way to achieve liberation from oppressors. This is because it opposes acquiescence by emphasizing that the oppressed don’t have to succumb to evil ways nor engage in violence to rectify the oppressive system. He emphasizes that the oppressed Negro must learn to stand up to the unfair system without using deceit, detest, ill will, or annihilation, and while at it, the oppressed should appreciate the oppressors. By embracing nonviolent resistance, the Negro will not display cowardice in their native homes but will struggle to fight for their rights, thereby making a heroic contribution to the nation and the coming generations.

Nonviolent resistance movements should be the way for the Negro to quest the urge to achieve equality and justice. These kinds of movements are peace-loving and bring order, thereby attracting more participation from the mass and sympathy. King asserts this by saying, “When, however, the mass movement repudiates violence while moving resolutely toward its goal, its opponents are revealed as the instigators and practitioners of violence if it occurs,” King explains, “Then public support is magnetically attracted to the advocates of nonviolence, while those who employ violence are disarmed by overwhelming sentiment against their stand.” (King Jr., 1958, p. 4). Nonviolent resistance is also a way the Negro, who has now excelled in politics, economics, and acquired cultural knowledge, can use to assure the white community who oppressed them that they will not pay evil with evil and that they are forgiving people. Nonviolence’s way of meeting oppression finds a means to promote justice based on persuading through providing conscience judgment. Therefore, since laws have a moral foundation, then nonviolent resistance is a moral means to deal with oppression.

In “After the firebombing” by Malcolm X, he notes that the Black man wants to rise to the power structure and gain his freedom. He concedes that the Blacks have resorted to a revolution against colonialism and imperialism. With time the colonialism era in Africa started collapsing, and Africans were resisting. However, the western powers were not ready to get out of Africa yet, so they passed on indirect colonialism to powers that seemingly didn’t colonize Africa. He says, “When the ball was passed to the United States, it was passed at the time when John Kennedy came into power. He picked it up and helped to run it. He was one of the shrewdest backfield runners that history has ever recorded.… So, they used the “friendly” approach. They switched from the old, open colonial, imperialistic approach to the benevolent approach” (Malcolm X 9). He continues to point benevolent colonialism resorted to the Negros fighting for their rights through nonviolent resistance movements that were militant.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1958). Three ways of meeting oppression. In Stride toward freedom . Beacon Press, Boston.

Malcolm X. (1965). After the firebombing, at Ford Auditorium. MalcolmXFiles malcolmxfiles.blogspot.com.

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Ways Of Meeting Oppression By Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Show More In his essay “Ways of Meeting Oppression” which is written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his book called “Strive toward Freedom (1958)”, he explicates his opinion on the victims of oppression and their reactions in a systematic manner. He focuses his thoughts on victims or “the oppressed people” rather than discussing behavior of the oppressor. In that context, he talks about three different ways that oppressed people react toward the oppression. They include: acquiesces, physical violence, and nonviolence movement approaches. To me, he nonviolent resistance way of behaving towards the oppression is a fascinating conflict resolution method which can be an appealing way for Afghan women to get their basic rights in Afghanistan. Existing violence …show more content… shelter, clothing and all other livelihood expenses). Women are not allowed outside because in most cases women are seen as man’s honor, and Afghan male will accept death but will not accept to lose their honor in society by allowing their women to step outside their homes. If someone’s mother, wife, or sister works outside, their father, husband or brother will face the wisecrack of other man in the town. Those man whose female family member works outside are known as (Beghairat –one with no honor and courage) callous. Keeping women at home in return results in them to be weak, and do not have access to outside resources and/or opportunities for enhancement of themselves or their lives. Preventing them from working outside will increase their reliance on their husbands and fathers thus keeping them financially vulnerable and dependent on the male counterparts. Circumstances are such that they are kept physically, economically, psychologically, and socially weaker than men. Hence use of physical violence for Afghan women to achieve their true potential and rights will end up achieving nothing. As mentioned by Dr. King “Physical violence solves no social problem; it merely creates new and more complicated ones”. Therefore, how can Afghan women achieve their

Comparing Speech At The March On Washington And Letter From Birmingham Jail

In the article “Speech at The March On Washington” by Josephine Baker and “Letter From Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. both argue about discrimination and making a solution with non-violence such as protesting. To achieve true freedom, you must practice non-violence in order to protect your rights. To begin with, in order to achieve true freedom one must protest peacefully. According to the text “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Baker states “We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed it is wrong to urge individual cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest many precipitate, it is. “This evidence is valid and relevant because they realize what was wrong and there should be certain rights.…

Making Privilege And Oppression Happen By Allan G. Johnson

In “Making Privilege and Oppression Happen” in the book Privilege, Power, and Difference, by Allan G. Johnson, he writes how privilege is maintained by discriminating people of different categories and treating them unequally, acting act discriminatory behavior and justifying it. Outright discrimination is not always seen to those acting out discriminatory behavior, but evident to the victims of these unfair treatments. This can be seen in implicit bias, defined by Johnson to be unconscious discrimination. Johnson mentions an Australian study that shows white people are more likely to get a free bus ride, if in need, then people of color, even if dressed “appropriately.” To the bus driver, not giving people of color free rides, is doing the…

Gandhi's Response To The Declaration Of Independence

The Declaration of Independence says that “all men are created equal,” but where does this apply to women? Women are considered inferior to the male race; it has always been that way. Not only do they receive fewer opportunities than a man, but even their payroll has been affected because of this. In 1963 John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963. This act requires that both male and female employees must be given equal pay for work or you are breaking the law.…

Martin Luther King Jr.: The Three Tenets Of The Black Power Movement

Four key figures emerged from the Black Power Movement who promoted the following three tenets: self-defense, self-determination and self-respect. Martin Luther King Jr. accelerated the Black Power movement through self-determination and self-respect, but decelerated the process in terms of self-defense because of his nonviolent perspective. Malcom X on the other hand accelerated all three tenets through Black Nationalism. More particularly Malcom X encouraged individualism, separatism through any means possible, including violence. Similarly Stokely Carmichael, also known as Kwame Taft, promoted all three tenets through education.…

Gandhi Nonviolence Dbq Analysis

“[People] find it difficult to grasp the idea of nonresistance”(Doc G). There is an adequate amount of evidence from historical examples that nonviolence can be an effective and conclusive method of social action, and this can be shown through Gandhi and and King’s strategic methods. Gandhi brought independence to India and King brought civil rights to the United States. Ultimately, deep religious conviction was the underlying source of nonviolent success.…

Mlk's Fight For Equality

After World War II ended, African Americans realized that the United States fought for democracy and equality in other nations but failed to achieve that domestically. Thus, civil rights groups and organization arose with the ultimate goal of getting equality and complete freedom from the chain that whites put in them. Furthermore, MLK became a well-known figure in 1955 after he was chosen to be the protest leaders and spokesmen after Rosa Park was arrested for refusing James F. Blake’s order to give her seat to a white passenger. Highly educated, MLK kept on learning from activists such as Mahatma Gandhi, and hence was targeted by numerous people that viewed him as a threat. Moreover, in 1957, MLK and other ministry friends founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a nonviolent group that would fight for African Americans equality all over the United States.…

E. B. Dubois And Martin Luther King's Struggle For Equality

Throughout our history, men and women have fought for a racially inclusive future, joining together to demand a more just America. Leaders like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Dubois, and Martin Luther King Jr. looked at unions as the key to African American workers to achieve equality, knowing the labor movement could not be whole without the participation of black workers. The history of race and the working class in the United States begins with African American workers in the South. When African Americans migrated to the north, they found growing discrimination and unequal access to opportunities. In the time between World Wars I and II, businesses used ethnic differences to damage labor unity.…

Nonviolent Protests Of Martin Luther King Jr.

America is the home of men and women who are an example for today's society. These people were responsible for the social and political changes we now encounter every day. Without them, we would not be the advanced society that we are now. One admirable American that is a role model for today's young people is Martin Luther King Jr., who created nonviolent protests and fought for African American compensation rights. Martin Luther king was responsible for various peaceful and non-violent protests.…

Luther King Jr.'s Essay 'The Ways Of Meeting Oppression'

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s essay entitled The Ways of Meeting Oppression, he argues why the path of nonviolent resistance is superior to the paths of acquiescence and physical violence. In his writing, Martin Luther King Jr. uses a few different rhetorical devices. He uses loaded words and diction to show that he is educated and professional, so people would take him seriously while living in a racist time period. He also alludes to many famous and historical sources. King uses these rhetorical devices combined with his intelligence makes his writing easy to read, while still being very informative.…

Martin Luther King Jr.: The Most Important Civil Rights Leader

Did you know that mlk started college at age 15.King being an orator made people think about him. Being a peaceful protester made people notice him. He was also a great leader which let him have followers. And his hard life made him aware of was going on in the world. His legacy helped him become an important civil rights leader.…

Essay On Women's Rights In The Kite Runner

They have no say in whom they will marry or how they live. In The Kite Runner Amir is not allowed to go up to the general’s daughter because shame will be put upon her for talking to another man, that is not family. These women just go on with life and have no ambitions because they know that will never happen. No woman is allowed to go off and get an education and become a surgeon. None of the women in Afghanistan, who live by tradition, know how to read nor write.…

Oppression Of Women In A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khaled Hosseini

A woman was required to be obedient to her husband and submit to him no matter the circumstances. In an environment like such, a breeding ground for abuse was created. Stories of the abuse of women in Afghanistan speak volumes to the abuse they endure. In an article written by Bethany Matta for Al Jazeera, writes of a woman who was beaten by her husband accompanied by his family members on multiple occasions. The woman, Sadie states the family would tell her “You’re all alone, scream as loud as you want, there is no one here to hear you.”…

Nonviolent Resistance

Many individuals think that the most successful way to resist opposition is through violence. In Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth’s article, Why Civil Resistance Works, they challenge the view of violence being the most effective form of opposition. Their main argument is that nonviolent resistances’ are more successful. They state, “…nonviolent resistance is a forceful alternative to political violence that can pose effective challenges to democratic and non-democratic opponents and at times can do so more effectively than violent resistance” (Stephan and Chenoweth, 9). Nonviolence resistances are civilian based methods to wage conflict through nonviolent means.…

Martin Luther King Jr Contribution To The Civil Rights Movement

The first importation of black slaves in 1619 inaugurated a period of white superiority in America that persisted for decades. Even in the earliest years of settlement in the New World, white Europeans enslaved and oppressed black Africans. A belief in equality for all races alike, in contrast to the previous white supremacist viewpoint, wouldn’t be introduced until the abolitionist efforts of the Civil War. It was not until thereafter that Africans would begin their road to acceptance in American society as a free people. Facing constant racial discrimination and prejudice, their transition from slavery to freedom was a long, grueling task.…

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The Right Way to Manage Emotions on Your Team

A conversation with Michigan Ross’s Lindy Greer and Christina Bradley on handling uncomfortable situations.

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Many managers don’t know what to say when a team member appears angry, frustrated, or sad. They might even feel it is unprofessional to acknowledge those feelings at all. But research shows that avoidance is costly. Doctoral student Christina Bradley and professor Lindy Greer, both of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, say teams perform better when their leaders respond effectively to members’ emotions. The researchers outline when and how to do that in a way that builds stronger relationships, teams, and organizational culture. Bradley and Greer are coauthors, with Michigan Ross professor Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, of the HBR article “ When Your Employee Feels Angry, Sad, or Dejected .”

CURT NICKISCH: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Curt Nickisch.

It’s normal for employees to feel angry, or frustrated, or down at times, and it’s very common for their supervisors to notice and to say nothing. Why? Many managers feel that it’s unprofessional to talk about negative emotions at work or they just don’t have the wherewithal to talk about them, but that’s a mistake.

Research shows that teams perform better when their leaders acknowledge their members’ emotions, and today’s guests have some advice for managers who need help with that. They’ve researched a mental checklist to run through, like asking, “Is the employee working on something time-sensitive right now? Do they seem to be coping?” This framework can help leaders know when to validate someone’s feelings, offer advice, or just give time and space.

Christina Bradley is a doctoral student, and Lindy Greer is a management professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Along with their colleague, Professor Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, they wrote the HBR article When Your Employee Feels Angry, Sad, or Dejected. Christina, great to talk to you.

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Thank you for having us.

CURT NICKISCH: Lindy, great to talk to you too.

LINDY GREER: Excited to be here.

CURT NICKISCH: Where does your interest in emotions at work come from? For some people this is just they’d rather talk about other things and this is a downer topic, right? So what attracts you to this topic?

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: I really believe that emotions are just so central to the workplace. We’re human beings in the workplace. We bring ourselves to work. Things are going to happen in the workplace that bring up both positive and negative emotions, and really difficult to both manage our own emotions and the emotions of other people, so what do you even do when you see someone experiencing emotion? So I’ve always been really curious about how can we think about our emotions and the emotions of others in the workplace and help really bring human connection more into workplace interactions.

CURT NICKISCH: And Lindy, you’ve been studying this for a while.

LINDY GREER: I have been studying teams for a long while and topics that get hairy like conflict or diversity, power struggles, relationship conflicts – the harder things at work. In particular, at the time that Christina started her PhD program, I had just launched a class on diversity, equity, and inclusion around 2020 and found there’s often emotions in the classroom I didn’t have the tools to deal with. Being a scientist then, I went out to the literature to say, “Well, what do we know? What can science tell me of what to do when someone in my class gets angry or brings trauma?” I found there weren’t that great of answers yet, particularly in the management workplace.

CURT NICKISCH: Well, let’s get into misconceptions because one of them is that you should even acknowledge emotions at work, and you found that the research is pretty clear on this.

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Yeah. So we find in a lot of research, it shows that people are hesitant to even engage with people’s emotions. There’s some research that shows in conflict, 90% of the time, managers avoid actually engaging with emotions at all. They say, “It’s one of the hardest things we have to manage.” We’re consistently finding that even though some people might be reluctant to engage in this type of behavior, emotional acknowledgement, asking people questions about their emotions, validating their emotions, we find consistent evidence over, and over, and over that people really appreciate this type of acknowledgement. They want people to see what they’re feeling, to be heard, and for people to be interested in how they’re feeling in the workplace.

CURT NICKISCH: Is part of the fear of getting involved in emotions just this fear of getting into mental health problems?

LINDY GREER: I mean, there’s many different reasons for it. One, emotions are contagious, and if I go sit down with someone who’s having a bad day, I’m probably going to feel pretty bad afterwards too and learn behavior. We tend to probably avoid those situations which make us feel bad. So there’s one of just dealing with… making sure that the emotions of the other person don’t become yours. A. B, in the workplace, there is this expectation of professionalism, and admittedly, probably more of a Western norm, but when we’re at work, we’re talking about the performance, the numbers, and that having that touchy-feely conversation doesn’t really ascribe to expectations of the workplace and just fear of stepping out of that expectation and crossing boundaries.

Three, you’re right. There could be also just a mental health stigma of where… Even outside of the workplace, to be honest, we’re probably not always that great either about leaning into the emotions of our friends and family.

CURT NICKISCH: Right. To be clear though, you’re saying that having an emotion at work, exhibiting that, talking about it isn’t unprofessional even if some people still think it is?

LINDY GREER: It doesn’t have to be. It depends on how you engage.

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Absolutely. There are some times where maybe it is best to allow your employees to deal with their emotions privately if you’re getting signals that they don’t want to talk about their emotions, but at least opening the space for them to be able to talk about their emotions is really important.

CURT NICKISCH: I mean, we’re using emotions very generally here. What emotions seem to be the most problematic or the ones that that are maybe the stumbling blocks here that we have to focus on?

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: I found it really interesting when we did this review of people study both how to respond to positive and negative emotions because these emotions all show up in the workplace. There’s really interesting work by Shelly Gable that shows that when people respond to positive emotions in a way that’s engaging and excited for the person, that can actually really build relationships. When people don’t respond to those emotions, if you just passively say, “Oh, cool, you’re feeling a good, positive emotion,” those relationships actually aren’t as strong, and so even responding to people’s positive emotions can be helpful.

Negative emotions are definitely more difficult to navigate. We have more anxiety about how to respond to those. Alyssa Yu showed in her work about emotional acknowledgement that when we actually acknowledge those negative emotions, sometimes that can build even more trust because people are going out of their way. It’s more costly to respond to those emotions. They might backfire more often if you respond to those, but even responding to those negative emotions can be even more powerful because you’re taking that risk.

LINDY GREER: I see this a lot in my executive teaching work, for example, of typical emotions you can see and say a management team or a C-suite of C-level executives could be frustration over a budget allocation, anger, a perspective of someone else about how money should be spent. Maybe even disappointment. In talking to one of the CEOs in one of the teams that I worked with recently, he halfheartedly laughed, but said, “I never realized my job as CEO was chief therapist.” He’s like, “It’s impossible to actually make effective decisions on strategy, on finance, on our next acquisition if I’m not actually able to engage with the emotions of my team.”

Especially in these senior leadership teams, it’s big emotions. People have done lots of work, are representing big units of people, and when they’re having these tough discussions, emotions come out. At the end of the day, that falls to the leader to be the one to engage, and so he was feeling, “Oh, not only is this professional, but it’s a must-do in order for my team to be effective.”

CURT NICKISCH: One thing that you said that’s super helpful for people is to actually know their default mode for this kind of situation. I know for me, I often go straight to problem-solving: “You’re feeling sad about something? Let’s solve this problem right now.” Why do you think just understanding your default mode is helpful before you start encountering these situations?

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: I think it’s very natural to jump into problem-solving. That’s what we find. It seems like when we reviewed the literature, on 80% of the time, people prefer to try to problem-solve, give advice, think about the situation differently, look on the bright side. It’s a very common tendency for us to want to solve. I think also, in the workplace where a lot of our work is trying to solve problems, it becomes a tendency.

CURT NICKISCH: And it seems like it’s the quickest too, right?

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Yeah.

CURT NICKISCH: In some ways, you’re trying to deal with the emotion by removing it.

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Absolutely.

CURT NICKISCH: Maybe removing the problem seems like the shortest route to get there.

LINDY GREER: And that’s the funny bit of this, right, is our gut reactions from evolution, take your choice, to either fight or flight an emotion. Flight as in just avoid it and pretend it’s not happening, or fight where, “No. Don’t feel that. Let me help you reframe it. Let me fix this so you don’t feel what you feel.” It’s a very basic fight or flight reaction. The harder thing, right, is to get out of fight or flight mode yourself when you see an emotion of someone else and be able to accept it to say, “Hey, it’s okay to feel what you feel,” but that’d also be for yourself, being willing to be comfortable with emotions in the room. For all of us, that can be hard.

It starts though with self-awareness of how do we first understand these natural reactions we all can have, and work to build the muscle to be able to put ourself in situations where emotions are, and proactively just try to withhold judgment, withhold the need to fix, just be with someone else because at the end of the day, our researchers show that often is a quicker and more effective way to regulate someone, to help them get through their emotion than us trying to poke at it or fix it. If I could just say, “Hey, this meeting is a little tense,” you could just see the steam go off of people like, “Huh.”

The leader agrees, “It is tense. Okay. It’s not just me. I feel better already,” which is very different than me looking at the person in the room who is tense to be like, “You look tense. What’s the matter with you?” or, “Here’s how you think about it differently.” That makes people feel more emotional.

CURT NICKISCH: And some of this is over video conference now too, right? I mean, I think it’s one thing for a manager to walk through and then notice if someone looks stressed, confused, flustered. It’s different when your weekly or fortnightly engagement is through a one-on-one over a video conference, so do they have to work a little bit harder to try to recognize these situations?

LINDY GREER: Yeah. For sure, they do. One of the things I’ve been doing in my team is having an energy check that’s asynchronous and written in the meeting agenda before we start the meeting over just people give a number on a one to seven of how much energy they feel for the work that we do right now which allows us then a way to know if there is an emotion that we should be talking about – is one example.

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: And also, I think a lot of our conversations now in the workplace, they take place over Zoom, they take place over email. So I think even as managers, thinking about what emotions your employees might be feeling, even if you don’t actually witness them experiencing an emotion, but, “Is there something in the workplace that’s happening right now that might be causing them to feel an emotion? How can I check in, make sure that they feel taken care of, and seen, and valued?” So it might not even be in response to an emotion you see, but an emotion that you might be predicting they might be feeling.

LINDY GREER: For example, some of the videos of CEOs during layoff that were so egregious. From a distance, we know that a situation like that should evoke emotions that need some form of acknowledgement. There are certain categories of situations, events in society, elections, take your choice, where as a good manager, you’re probably wise to anticipate emotions and go unprepared to acknowledge what’s happening inside or outside the organization.

CURT NICKISCH: Sometimes you have to make a pretty quick observation and decision about how to respond, right? You might be walking past somebody. It comes up in a meeting. You have to decide how to proceed, and you offer two key questions to ask to help figure out how to proceed. One is just, “Are they working on a time-sensitive deadline?” and, “Are they coping?” Can you explain that?

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Absolutely. So it really depends on the work that’s being done in the moment how you might respond. We talked to some surgeons, and they said, “In the moment when we are in the middle of surgery, it’s not really the time for us to be able to really ask someone how they’re doing.

And then, the second question, “Are they coping in that moment?” we thought about as, “Is there emotion facilitating their ability to complete the task? Are they so flooded with emotion in that moment where they might actually need some help regulating out of that emotion, or are they handling their emotions well in the moment that they’re able to complete their task, and then you’re able to check in after they’ve been able to do what they need to do?”

LINDY GREER: Yeah. We really try to stress test some of our ideas on this by going to different examples. So, for example, in a surgery with a resident and a lead physician, you might notice a resident getting anxious or getting rattled. Then, we had a lead physician tell us that in that situation, you actually… It’s life or death to engage with the emotion. You cannot let that go forward, but usually, you don’t have the time or the ability to validate. You just need them to get out of that now, and so this physician talked about getting up in the face of the residents being like, “Calm down,” and just really getting eye-to-eye with them and making eye contact to help them change the track that they were in.

There’s also a time and a place to validate. So, at one point too, we’re talking to a Navy SEAL and asking, “I could imagine there’s big emotions when you’re in stressful situations like a gunfight. What do you do?” It was really interesting. The story got back of the leader himself would imagine in the stressful situation holding onto a hot cup of tea, visualizing that as a way to regulate himself to make sure that he stay calm because he wasn’t able to deal with anyone else’s emotions if he wasn’t calm, and there is really interesting research that shows that temperature change is a great way to flush an emotion from our brain. So even just like that visualization of a hot cup of tea, pretty effective tool for him.

Then, if he would notice during the gun fight that someone on his team was getting too emotional, too aggressive, too angry, too upset, he would wait. So he would hold on because at that point, the person was coping enough in a high-pressure situation to not do anything, but he did want to make sure to go afterwards to check on the person. So if there’d be a lull, he would go over to the person and be like, “Hey, this is stressful. I get it. This is a lot,” to acknowledge the situation, and then he would try to help regulate because at that point, the person might seem upset, and you had a little bit of time.

So after first validating, then he would sometimes make a joke and try to insert a jolt of positive to help the person balance it out. But note, that was after first validating that what the person was feeling was normal, and then trying to offer some way to help them refrain the situation.

So, for us, we really wanted to have a simple tool for managers because this can feel so overwhelming of emotion. “What do I do?” To have just these two easy questions that can match against a lot of the different situations we can think of to help people choose the right tool out of their pocket to apply in the right moment.

CURT NICKISCH: What about when it’s not so time-sensitive? What do you recommend in those situations?

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Yeah. So there’s one situation where it’s not time-sensitive. They are seeming to be able to… They’re holding together their emotion, they’re doing well, but they still are experiencing something. So, in those situations, just simply validating, acknowledging, expressing curiosity might be all they need in that moment. They might just need to be seen, heard, and you can leave the situation there. You might not need to have to jump in and help them solve that emotion.

Then, we talk about a different situation where it’s not time-sensitive, and they might actually express some type of need, or they might ask you, “Hey, can I talk something through with you? I do need help regulating.” In those moments, we find that first validating, so still starting with that acknowledgement, starting with the acceptance of their emotion so that they do feel seen and heard, and then following that with some type of advice, helping them reframe, think about a different situation. So there is that time and place to help them work through the emotion that they’re feeling in those situations.

CURT NICKISCH: How does that sound? Right? I think our listeners really want to hear almost like what to say and how to express or what tone to use it in.

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: So I think there’s many ways, and I’m finding that in my research that first asking questions about people’s emotions seems to be really appreciated, so, “Hey, how are you feeling about this?” Not trying to change their emotions, but just asking for them to explain and follow up on what they’re feeling. You might also-

CURT NICKISCH: Showing that you care.

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Yeah, yeah. Exactly, showing that you care. They can then self-label their emotion and explain. You might say, as Lindy said before, “Hey, this meeting is really tough.” Showing them that you might also be feeling a similar emotion, and that it’s really okay to be feeling what they’re feeling, because no one really wants to feel that their emotions don’t make sense or invalid in any way. So saying something like, “that must be really hard right now. I’m so sorry you’re going through that.” So just letting people feel what they’re feeling, showing that you see what they’re feeling, it’s okay to be feeling that way, and that they’re not wrong to be feeling an emotion.

LINDY GREER: Speak to the situation and not to the emotion. Some of funnier failed studies Christina and I had early on, we were looking at different examples of how to validate. And on one side of it, we had people say, “Validate the emotion,” so, “Hey, Curt. I see that you’re looking frustrated today.” That’s okay. What we found is that actually made it way worse. A couple of reasons. One, we are so inaccurate at being able to precisely label the other emotions someone else is feeling, A, and then you’re mad at me because, well, I wasn’t frustrated. I was just a little confused, but now I am frustrated that you don’t understand me.

CURT NICKISCH: What are tactful ways of turning from this sympathizing and validation to a little bit of action or orientation towards solving the problem, addressing it, helping that employee. I guess number one, when do you know that it’s right that you can start to offer that and take that step, and then how do you suggest going about doing that?

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Some of the most helpful strategies would be to help them change how they’re thinking about the situation. So there’s a lot of work in the regulating the intrapersonal emotion regulation space, a lot of work by James Gross, showing that when we change how we think about a situation, it can actually help us regulate our own emotions.

A lot of new research is showing that when we help other people change how they’re thinking about a situation, that can be the most helpful in those situations. So it might be helping them see a different perspective, so think about how another person might view the situation. If you took a broader view of what’s happening right now, what would that look like?

LINDY GREER: You can also imagine, for example, what a mentor would do in that situation. Ethan Kross at Michigan has an amazing book called Chatter that gives really great insights into how you manage your own emotions. In his research, he’s shown, “Imagine what a mentor would do,” or even, “Think about yourself in the third person.” Super awkward, but to coach the person to say, “Okay. Lindy is trying to do a surgery, and Lindy is rattled. Lindy, ask yourself. What should Lindy do on her best day? What is the right way to show up here?”

The minute you can get people outside the situation by either having them imagine what a mentor would do or a neutral third-party, or even just referring to themselves as a third person, it helps them get the space and distance they see to figure it out themself. Note here that even in this regulation, it’s more coaching than telling, right? You’re still not just telling them like, “This is how you should view the situation,” which rarely is this helpful as helping them find the distance to find the solution to fix it themself.

CURT NICKISCH: You also say that this is something managers need to be cultivating – proactively start collecting some of these phrases or ways to approach things, and just see what feels right for them and what feels natural, and have those at the ready…

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Yeah, yeah. We say at the end of the article, “There’s many ways to learn how to do this.” How can you gather repertoire of strategies so that, as you said, in the moment, you have an idea of what to do? First, you can recognize how other people respond to you. You notice, “When that person gave me advice and I wanted acknowledgement, how did I feel?” So thinking about those situations. How do people respond to your emotions? We also say, “How can we be inspired by how other people respond to people’s emotions?”

I witnessed my colleague give wonderful advice to someone who is struggling. How can we be inspired by how they handled someone else’s emotions? This happens every day in the workplace and in our personal lives, so how can we continue to just bring awareness and to pay attention to how people are responding to the emotions of others?

CURT NICKISCH: Is it okay to do this over Slack, or email, or a digital communication tool rather than in person?

LINDY GREER: If it was me, I’d always recommend if someone has shared an emotion, I might offer to pick up the phone, or go for a walk, or meet to talk about it. Maybe you can drop in the acknowledgement that like, “Hey, what you’re feeling is okay.” But if I know someone is to the point that they’re writing in words, “I have an emotion,” at least as a manager, a peer, or a friend, I would want to make sure that I made the offer of support in some form.

CURT NICKISCH: I mean, it’s one thing to walk past somebody or have this come up in situations where it may be one-on-one and where you may have direct communication. It’s another thing if it might come out as a comment in a meeting, and even as a manager, you’re like, “Did that just happen?” or “That was a little strange.” What do you recommend for managers? Is that something for them to act upon? How would you approach it?

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Yeah. We have a hunch that one-on-one conversations are the best for responding to people’s emotions. In public, it can be very exposing to acknowledge or ask someone about how they’re feeling. Then, it puts them in a position where they have to explain it to the group. So, as much as possible, we suggest that if you can find a time to wait in the moment and then have that conversation after the fact, we think that might be the most helpful.

LINDY GREER: If the person is at the point they’re unable to participate in the meeting, that’s when you might need to amp it up in the meeting or call a break to go offline with the person. But if it was a glimpse as you saw and they seem to be coping, going back to the two questions we introduced in the article, I would let it go and then come back later to check in.

CURT NICKISCH: What if this is just a colleague and not a direct report?

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: I think all of these things apply to our colleagues, as I said, to how our manager is experiencing emotion. We talk about leaders responding to the emotions of their employees in the article, but I think all of these can be applied to how your teammate is experiencing emotion, how your client is experiencing an emotion, so different situations in the workplace.

CURT NICKISCH: What’s your advice for a manager if they’re feeling emotional? Is there relevance here in this framework to them?

CHRISTINA BRADLEY: Yeah. I think if you’re feeling… Emotions are definitely going to come up. As leaders, you have so much responsibility, and so working on really accepting your own emotions. It’s okay to be feeling the emotions you’re feeling, but also, “How do I express these emotions to my team?”

And some new work that we’re doing is looking at how can managers navigate that situation of, “I want to be vulnerable with my team. I want to be authentic, but I also want to make sure that I’m not just laying all my emotions out on my team.”

So one strategy we’re looking at right now is just managers providing some type of context to their employees about what they’re feeling. So they might say, “Hey, I might seem stressed right now. I’m dealing with something. I just came out of a stressful meeting. It has nothing to do with you right now, but I just want to know. If you do pick up on any stress that I’m feeling, that is why.” So how can you as a manager say, “I feel emotions too, but I’m also managing them and giving you some context for what I’m feeling?”

LINDY GREER: Leaders often show the best versions of themselves, I feel like, under pressure, when there is a clear problem and a clear goal to be solved. But that ability to acknowledge emotion, acknowledge the humanity in your organization – should be something that leaders are able to do on a daily basis, would be I think one of the big hopes spinning off of this project.

CURT NICKISCH: Christina and Lindy, this was really great. Thanks so much for sharing your research and these insights with our audience.

LINDY GREER: Thank you.

CURT NICKISCH: That’s Christina Bradley, a doctoral student, and Lindy Greer, a management professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and they’re coauthors of the HBR article When Your Employee Feels Angry, Sad, or Dejected.

We have nearly 1,000 episodes and more podcasts to help you manage your team, your organization, and your career. Find them at hbr.org/podcasts or search HBR in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Thanks to our team, Senior Producer Mary Dooe, Associate Producer Hannah Bates, Audio Product Manager Ian Fox, and Senior Production Specialist, Rob Eckhardt. Thank you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. We’ll be back on Tuesday with our next episode. I’m Curt Nickisch.

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David Firestone

Deputy Editor, the Editorial Board

The Darkness on the Edge of Trump

In a forbidding and deliberately frightening news conference on Thursday, Donald Trump took listeners on what sounded like a tour of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Mordor. But the fetid swamps and jagged mountains of the shadowy land that Donald Trump described were the streets of the United States under the Biden/Harris administration, all of which he suggested will grow more foul should the country’s people make the fatal mistake of electing Kamala Harris president instead of him. His list of the plagues facing America included:

“Both gangs on the street and frankly gangs outside of our country.”

“We could end up in a depression of the 1929 variety, which would be devastating.”

“We’ll be very close to a world war.”

“You have millions and millions of dead people and you have people dying financially because they can’t buy bacon. They can’t buy food, they can’t buy groceries, they can’t do anything. And they’re living horribly in our country right now.”

“Our country is right now in the most dangerous position it’s ever been in from an economic standpoint, from a safety standpoint.”

Tim Walz “has positions that are just not even possible to believe that they exist. He’s going for things that nobody’s ever heard of. Heavy into the transgender world, heavy into lots of different worlds, having to do with safety.”

The description of these evils was so over the top that it strongly suggested Trump had simply lost his bearings in the face of the surge of enthusiasm that has been unleashed by Harris and Walz, evident in their poll numbers, prolific fund-raising and overflowing rally crowds. Having lost his earlier lead over President Biden, Trump has been complaining about his campaign lately, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, and his frustration was evident in his attempt to simply scare the public into voting for him.

He really lost it when a reporter asked him about the size of Harris’s crowds, frothing that she was getting crowds of 1,000 or 1,500 people (it was actually about 15,000 on Tuesday in Detroit) while he got a crowd on the New Jersey shore in May of more than 100,000, which even Fox News said was no more than 30,000. At one point, bizarrely and nonsensically, he claimed that his crowd on Jan. 6, 2021 (about 10,000 people , many of whom went on to trash the Capitol) was bigger than that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..’s March on Washington in 1963, which drew about 250,000 people . Clearly the Harris rallies are getting to him.

But most of all, he can’t stand the sense of joyful enthusiasm that Harris and Walz are bringing to their campaign. He can’t come to grips with the sunny optimism of his opponents, their laughter and energy as they sketch out plans for a brighter day. Lacking joy himself, all he can counter with is darkness and permanent rain.

Opinion Staff Editor

The Deep Hypocrisy of the Trump Campaign Assailing Walz’s Military Service

Over the years, Americans have become inured to Donald Trump’s contempt for the military. Trump, who got out of service in Vietnam by claiming to have bone spurs , has frequently mocked P.O.W.s, denigrated wounded veterans and called those interred at Arlington National Cemetery (including members of my family) “ losers .”

Now the Trump campaign is once again demonstrating its lack of respect for military service as Trump’s running mate, a former Marine, denigrates Gov. Tim Walz’s 24 years of duty in the National Guard, during which he served as a command sergeant major . In remarks in Michigan on Wednesday, Senator JD Vance accused Walz — with little evidence — of “stolen valor,” saying he lied about seeing combat “in war.” And then Vance drew a comparison between his four years of service, during which he was a combat correspondent , and Walz’s 24.

“When the U.S. Marine Corps asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it,” Vance said. “When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, he dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him.”

For the most part, these claims, repeated uncritically by the internet’s MAGA faithful, don’t pass muster. It took precisely no time to figure out that Walz filed the paperwork to run for Congress and submitted his request to retire months before any official order to deploy to Iraq was received. According to a National Guardsman who served under Walz, he had been weighing the decision to run for Congress for quite a while.

Like many Guard members in the early 2000s, Walz was deployed overseas. His unit went to Italy as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. He did not see combat; however, he did say, in comments supporting a ban on assault weapons, “We can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.” Walz should clarify the record on this point at the earliest opportunity, lest someone assume — to be frank, fairly — that he intended to claim that he had seen combat.

Falsehoods can be debunked and records can be corrected, but Vance’s insidiously clever accusation will linger. For one, many people won’t care to parse the details of Vance’s spurious claims and the facts of Walz’s record, but they may remember some vague idea that Walz lied about his service. Vance’s line of attack was also perfectly calibrated to undermine Walz’s gentle masculinity, by not so subtly implying that his combatless service record somehow makes him less of a soldier and, by extension, less of a man.

To be clear: Neither Walz nor Vance has seen, as Vance says, “any real fighting.” In either case, their choice to serve was commendable. Should Vance wish for anyone to take seriously his lectures about honoring members of the armed services, he ought to start by giving one to the draft dodger at Mar-a-Lago.

Jesse Wegman

Editorial Board Member

The Trial Judge Who Has to Clean Up the Supreme Court’s Mess

Pity Tanya Chutkan, the punctilious federal district judge in Washington who inherited the ill-fated Jan. 6 prosecution of Donald Trump one year ago and has since done everything by the book, only to be rewarded with an eight-month delay while the defendant pressed his claim that he exists magically above the law.

It was a claim so outrageous, so detached from basic constitutional principles and hard-won lessons of American history, so fundamentally Trumpian, that virtually no serious person would countenance it — no one, that is, until six Supreme Court justices did last month , on the final day of the term.

Now Chutkan has to clean up the mess the right-wing majority made in its ruling , which created a shockingly broad yet poorly defined zone of immunity from criminal prosecution for presidents who can argue that they were engaged in their “official” duties.

This means going line by line through the special counsel Jack Smith’s 45-page indictment and separating the charges that involve official acts from those that are unofficial. The former must be dismissed; the latter might survive. The process will most likely include what some legal observers are calling a “mini-trial,” in which the government would be able to present some of its evidence in open court. It’s a far cry from an actual jury trial — which could and should have taken place months ago and surely would have if the defendant was not named Trump — but at this point it’s the only chance the American people will have to get more clarity on the details of the former president’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

It’s also an opportunity for Chutkan to call the justices’ bluff. When they wrote that it remains possible to hold a president to account for breaking the law, did they mean it?

The best way to get an answer to that question is to apply the methodological rigor the court refused to use. This work is already underway, thanks to the good folks at Just Security, the national-security site that has been obsessively tracking and analyzing the various Trump prosecutions. In a color-coded annotation of the indictment, Just Security breaks down which charges are almost certain to be dismissed (red), which are on the fence (yellow) and which are likely to survive (green).

In the first category are the charges involving Trump’s communications with Justice Department officials, which the Supreme Court explicitly said count as official acts, even though they were plainly based on allegations of election fraud he had been told were false.

Beyond those communications and a few others that Trump had with then-Vice President Mike Pence, however, Just Security’s annotation is a sea of greens and yellows. In other words, a vast majority of Trump’s behavior on and around Jan. 6, 2021, was not taken in any official capacity and should not be immune from prosecution.

This is obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes and a memory of that awful day. The question is whether that category includes the right-wing supermajority of the Supreme Court.

Isaac Scher

Opinion Editorial Assistant

What Do Uncommitted Voters Want From Kamala Harris?

Shortly before primary polls opened in Michigan last winter, an antiwar movement appeared to be gaining popularity, pledging to cast “uncommitted” votes unless President Biden ended the U.S. government’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza. At the time, one Democrat reportedly said of Biden and his retinue: “They are freaking out about the uncommitted vote.”

About 100,000 primary votes in Michigan, home to the country’s largest population of Arab Americans, were cast for uncommitted; the statewide campaign had aimed to reach just 10,000. Similar results poured in across the country, and established the antiwar movement as a real political force.

The uncommitted bloc spoke in a language that elected officials could understand: the language of primary voting. But for that very reason, the upcoming Democratic convention will not be an electoral-political showdown over Gaza. There are only 30 uncommitted delegates; over 4,500 other delegates have already pledged their support for Kamala Harris.

But those 30 delegates still have demands — a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and an embargo of U.S. weapons for Israel — which they hope their presence will prevent Harris from forgetting. Ending the war and halting military aid “should be the lowest hanging fruit,” June Rose, an uncommitted delegate from Rhode Island, told me. “It’s time for us to stop killing and killing Palestinian children.”

The delegates say they want the Democratic nominee to remember the electoral threat that uncommitted voters produced during the primaries. “The ball is in their court,” Rose said. “This is about saving democracy, and this is about ending a genocide.”

While party progressives see Biden as Israel’s enabler in chief, his second in command has received a relatively warmer welcome. “She was one person who’s constantly calling for cease-fires,” Asma Mohammed, a delegate in Minnesota who is the head organizer of the state’s uncommitted campaign, told me. “She’s maybe more sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people, and we’re hopeful in that.”

But there is also concern that, like about half of congressional Democrats , Harris has received money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, a pro-Israel group.

As a senator, Harris hewed closely to the Washington consensus on Israel. Lately her message has changed. Unlike most public officials, she has acknowledged that Palestinians in Gaza, subject to Israel’s blanket blockade of food, are “eating leaves or animal feed” to survive. Her team has privately engaged Arab and Muslim communities, as well as elected officials, to encourage activism for a cease-fire, according to Abbas Alawieh, director of the national Uncommitted Movement.

Even if Harris’s rhetorical shift is evident, her policy position is not. “I need to hear from Vice President Harris how it is that she will differentiate her Gaza policy from President Biden’s,” said Alawieh, who is an uncommitted delegate in Michigan. “What voters here, especially in Michigan, are very interested in hearing about isn’t just if you’re asking me to vote for one candidate or the other. It’s: How are these candidates communicating about whether or not they will stop killing our families?”

Opinion Writer

Trump’s Pandering Plan to Stop Taxing Social Security Won’t Work

Donald Trump wants to eliminate taxation of Social Security benefits. That may be a political winner, but it’s bad idea economically for at least four reasons.

First, those taxes support trust funds for Social Security and Medicare. Eliminating them would cost around $1.7 trillion over 10 years, accelerating the exhaustion of the trust fund for Social Security retirement benefits by more than one year and for Medicare hospital insurance by six years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

To keep the programs solvent, either some other tax would have to be raised or benefits would have to be cut. If the former president has a plan for doing one or both of those two things, he should spell it out now, but he has avoided discussing the implications of his idea. Most likely, any fix would shift the burden to young working people, Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the conservative Cato Institute, told The Times.

Second, eliminating taxation of Social Security would violate the principle that people with equal incomes should be taxed equally. Other retirement income, such as from private pensions, is taxed, so it’s hard to justify why Social Security benefits shouldn’t be. “There is no sound reason why two retirees with identical total pretax incomes should have vastly different after-tax incomes due to having different mixes of retirement saving,” Kyle Pomerleau, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote last week.

Third, the wealthy would benefit the most. “In dollar terms, the biggest winners would be those in the top 0.1 percent of income,” the Tax Policy Center wrote last week. Households earning $63,000 to $200,000 would get the biggest tax break as a share of their after-tax income, the center added.

Fourth, why? If stimulating economic growth is what you’re after, cutting Social Security taxation won’t get you there. If anything, by in effect increasing benefits, it could encourage people to retire earlier, shrinking the work force, as The Wall Street Journal editorialized last week. If intergenerational equity is what matters, this goes the wrong direction. As it is, young people are slated to get a worse deal from Social Security than their elders.

This feels like Trumpian pandering. Unfortunately for the Democrats, they have to make this point carefully because, as The Times points out , their vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz, as governor of Minnesota signed a bill exempting Social Security payments from state taxes for many seniors. (True, only a minority of states — the number keeps changing — tax Social Security benefits at all, and Minnesota’s decision has no effect on the finances of Social Security and Medicare.)

For sensible tax policy, election seasons are perilous.

Michelle Cottle

The Benefits of a Goofball on the Ticket

In tapping Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota for her running mate, Kamala Harris is experimenting with a quality not often seen in high-level national politics: the goofball factor.

Part of Walz’s charm is his lack of political polish: his penchant for silly jokes and faces, his willingness to risk looking ridiculous (I trust you’ve seen the piglet pic ), his smiley, gee-whiz amazement. The goofball factor is slightly different from the Regular-Guy vibe or the Small-Town vibe — although there is considerable overlap. Hailing from a culture that values tater tots can convey a real edge in the goofball department.

Stopped by the #MNstatefair Oink Booth and couldn’t resist holding one of the piglets! 🐷 pic.twitter.com/etCXLEtKD1 — Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) August 24, 2019

Many of us have a friend like Walz: the dorky dad/cousin/high school geography teacher who loves to make his wife or kids roll their eyes at him. If you haven’t seen the “Turkey is meat” exchange between the governor and his daughter, check it out . I’ll wait.

My daughter, Hope, tricked me into doing the most extreme ride at the Minnesota State Fair. pic.twitter.com/YeMEocwJRv — Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) September 4, 2023

As a political matter, the goofball factor risks making one seem unpresidential. But for a V.P. contender, there are upsides. One, it helps the ticket seem less intimidating, more relatable, and certainly less patronizing. I mean, it’s hard to look down on folks while snuggling a pig.

More specifically, it allows Walz to serve as an attack dog without seeming mean. At the rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, he tossed off multiple zingers — about Donald Trump’s criminality, about how “creepy and weird as hell” the Republican ticket is and even about JD Vance’s apocryphal affection for couches — while sounding downright genial.

I watched Walz’s remarks repeatedly, mostly to observe Harris’s reactions. Mostly, she nodded along, smiling indulgently or looking thoughtfully concerned as the moment dictated. Now and then, she’d laugh and clap. For the more eyebrow-raising bits — including the couch line — she looked to be consciously tamping down her reaction, even fighting not to burst out laughing.

This speaks to how Walz could be of particular value to Harris. Too often, women can have a hard time convincing some people that they have the gravitas to be strong leaders. Harris in particular has faced a … weird amount of criticism over her laugh, which many voters think makes her seem unserious and not that bright.

Simply by contrast, Walz’s dorky dad energy could aid Harris’s quest to seem more presidential. She can play the straight woman, staying above the fray while he brings the fun with partisan barbs and groaners she could never get away with.

Everybody understands his or her mission. And Harris can steer clear of camo ball caps, hunting vests and farm animals for the duration.

Jonathan Alter

Contributing Opinion Writer

Why the Electoral Math on Tim Walz Makes Sense

There’s a lot of talk that Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz to prevent Josh Shapiro’s views on the Middle East from becoming a distraction. But the more relevant reason that Walz was chosen is electoral.

It’s true that we were told for weeks that Electoral College criteria would lead to Shapiro, in the hopes that he could put the crucial state of Pennsylvania in Harris’s column. And if Harris narrowly loses Pennsylvania and thus the election, the failure to pick Shapiro will reverberate for generations.

But electoral math has many permutations. Shapiro, like Harris, is from the coastal elite. By contrast, Walz — a 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard — graduated from high school in a Nebraska town of 400 and later coached the Mankato West Scarlets to a Minnesota high school football championship. Unlike JD Vance, Walz didn’t leave home for Yale and private equity. Once his life story penetrates among voters, he will probably shore up Democrats in parts of the country where they need help the most.

Over the years, rural counties in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada have felt abandoned by Democrats. Many went for Donald Trump in the last two elections by 20 points or more, and he remains very popular in those places. But Walz, an authentic rural voice, might change that outcome and reduce Trump’s share to 55 percent from roughly 60 percent in enough counties. If that happens, Harris will win the election.

Zeynep Tufekci

Opinion Columnist

Google Exemplifies the Lack of Competition in the Tech World

One key reason that Google was found to be an illegal monopoly in an important antitrust decision on Monday was that it paid billions of dollars to be the default search engine for companies like Apple. But that’s not the only way the digital world has become so centralized, giving just a few companies the ability to dominate the industry.

All too often in the digital world, rich companies get richer and big ones get bigger thanks partly to something called network effects, which allow the early winners to build on that advantage to resist competition and shield themselves against market pressures — even if their product later loses its luster.

Imagine there are two standards for making phone calls, and each phone can use only one. Let’s say one standard gets to market first or has better sales, and 65 percent of the people you regularly call use it. Then a second standard comes in with much better sound quality, but not many people are using it.

You’d likely pick the one with the most users you call, despite the inferior sound, since the ability to call others is the critical reason for the phone. The superior phone has little to no chance. That’s called a network effect .

If many people are on WhatsApp, that’s what people and businesses will use to communicate, which makes the platform even stronger — and that’s why it mattered that Facebook was allowed to purchase WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.

To many at the time, it seemed like a crazy price, because WhatsApp had made only about $10 million in revenue in 2013. But Facebook was buying the network effect and killing a potential competitor at once. It’s probably one of the best purchases the company made.

This, then, can build on itself. Google’s search engine initially pulled ahead through a genuinely better product, but it also got something that its competitors didn’t have: billions of searches helping it understand what people were looking for, which the company then could use to improve its search results.

It also made sense for advertisers to go where the users were, which gave Google all those billions to pay Apple to remain its default search engine — something that worked even if the quality of the search results went down, which they did, at least in my experience.

Such effects are everywhere in the digital world.

For example, Apple and Google’s Android have the biggest app stores, so naturally most companies will write apps for their platforms, further incentivizing a consumer to purchase an Apple or Android phone because that’s where the best programs are — and so on.

The Google antitrust ruling is the first big win of its kind for the government in a long time, and it may be a good first step, but the anti-competitive forces that dominate the digital world go beyond that. And countering them will require new, sensible regulation that matches how digital technology actually works.

Farah Stockman

Should a Detroit Congressional District Be a ‘Black Seat’?

Update: Representative Shri Thanedar won the Aug. 6 primary with about 54 percent of the vote .

This election season has been studded with stories about race, mainly because of dumb things that Donald Trump has said about “Black jobs” and Kamala Harris’s racial identity. But race is also coming up in a congressional race in Detroit, in which Democrats are trying to take out one of their own — Representative Shri Thanedar, a freshman and an Indian-born entrepreneur — in Tuesday’s primary election.

Powerful figures in Detroit, including Mayor Mike Duggan, have endorsed Thanedar’s most serious rival, City Council member Mary Waters, who is Black, arguing that Thanedar hasn’t been helpful when the city needs it. That might be payback for Thanedar’s opposition to a hefty package of tax breaks to wealthy developers. But others oppose Thanedar because they say the seat, representing a majority Black city, should be held by a Black person.

“When it’s all said and done, we’ve got to have somebody there who understands the unique needs of African Americans,” Waters told the Michigan Advance , a nonprofit news site. “Because we do have some unique needs — some of the things that we should be fighting for, when it comes to voting rights, for example.”

Thanedar, who came from humble beginnings in India and got rich from starting a pharmaceutical company in the United States after years of struggle, won the election two years ago in a nine-way contest. News outlets noted that his election marked the first time in nearly 70 years that Detroit didn’t have a Black lawmaker representing it in Congress. (The other congressional seat that includes parts of Detroit is held by Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman in Congress.)

Thanedar says that the poverty he grew up in allows him to relate to his voters in a way that other politicians can’t. In any case, he swears that his ethnicity is not important to them.

“The people on the street don’t care,” he told me. “They tell me all the time: ‘Solve our problems. Fix the crime. I don’t have public transportation. Take care of that.’” It’s the media and the establishment Democrats that created the narrative that his seat is a “Black seat,” he said. On Tuesday, in a primary that is tantamount to the general election, we will see if he’s right.

Liriel Higa

Opinion Audience Director

My Favorite Simone Biles Moment Wasn’t When She Won Gold

GOAT. Most decorated. Winningest. It sounds hokey, but the most satisfying and joyful part of the Olympics for me is not which country is leading the medal count but when the best athletes in the world show their respect and admiration for one another, especially after an underperformance. On Monday, the last day of the artistic gymnastics competition, Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles, the Americans who took silver and bronze medals in the floor exercise final, showed such sportsmanship to Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who won gold.

During the medal ceremony, Biles and Chiles bowed down to the Brazilian as she climbed the podium to receive her medal. Andrade had already come in second to Biles in the all-around and vault event finals , but she took advantage of Biles’s two out-of-bounds landings to take first on floor.

Andrade was runner-up to Biles at the 2023 World Championships and second to Suni Lee at the Tokyo Olympics all-around. It may have been frustrating to keep coming in second, but she has been consistently supportive over the years, saying, for instance, that it was an “honor” to compete against Biles.

For her part, Biles has acknowledged her own fallibility, and reminded us that just because she makes winning look easy does not mean that it is. After the all-around final, Biles said of Andrade: “She’s way too close. I’ve never had an athlete that close, so it definitely put me on my toes, and it brought out the best athlete in myself.”

Of course, it’s easy to be gracious when you’ve won the gold. On Monday, in what might be her final Olympic performance, Biles took the silver on floor after a disappointing fifth-place finish on the balance beam. But when Chiles suggested that they bow down to Andrade, Biles eagerly agreed, creating one of the most iconic images from these Olympics.

Chiles explained their thinking during an interview after the competition. “Why don’t we just give her her flowers,” she said. “Not only has she given Simone her flowers, but a lot of us in the United States our flowers as well. So giving it back is what makes it so beautiful. So, I felt like it was needed.”

The Stock Market Dropped, but Don’t Freak Out

The secret to making money in the stock market is to buy low and sell high. Right? Not buy high and sell low.

So loading up on stocks when the market is breaking records and then dumping them when something bad happens is not the road to riches.

Yet that’s exactly what a lot of investors are undoubtedly doing, or contemplating, right now. I typed “Should I” into the Google search bar on Monday and the first autocomplete choice was “Should I sell my stocks now?” The third choice was “Should I sell my stocks?”

In between, by the way, was “Should I buy Nvidia stock?” Apparently, there are still some optimists out there.

I’m a journalist, not an investment adviser, so I don’t have any bright ideas for how to cope with market turmoil. I’ll just repeat the standard advice: Most of us amateurs should be long-term, buy-and-hold investors. Trying to time the ups and downs of the market rarely works.

It’s different if you have a big expense coming up soon. Then you really should think about selling stocks and putting the money in something safe, like a checking account. It would have been smarter to do that before the market broke, but better late than never.

Jeneen Interlandi

When Will the F.D.A. Crack Down on Stem Cell Clinics?

A jury in Tampa, Fla., has ordered a now-defunct stem cell clinic to pay at least $9 million in damages to more than 1,000 patients who say they were misled, lied to and put at medical risk by unscrupulous doctors offering scam therapies. The decision, nearly a decade in the making, is a welcome one for plaintiffs — and for anyone who cares about accountability.

But it will not do much for countless other patients who have been similarly duped .

Nearly a decade after a spate of mishaps first drew attention to the problem, clinics promoting dubious “adult stem cell” treatments for just about any medical condition you can think of (from autism to sexual dysfunction and diabetes) are still flourishing in the United States. These treatments are not only expensive and unproved, they can be dangerous . They have left some patients blind , others paralyzed and at least one dead.

So far, the Food and Drug Administration has made only vague gestures toward addressing the problem. In 2017, the agency said that at least some adult stem cell treatments would need to secure federal approval. Companies whose products had not been deemed an imminent threat to human health were given three years to comply with the requirement, and those with particularly risky offerings (such as products that get injected directly into the veins or the central nervous system) were threatened with imminent sanctions.

For the most part, though, nothing happened. “You’d think the F.D.A. would have taken dozens of actions,” Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell scientist at the University of California at Davis, told me. “But it just hasn’t happened.” The agency has long maintained that it lacks the resources to do much. But critics say that what officials there really lack is resolve.

It’s easy to see where such apathy might come from. Once revered as a bulwark against snake oil medicine, the F.D.A. is now seen by many Americans as a mere tool of the pharmaceutical industry, tasked with promoting and protecting corporate profits above all else. Attempts to regulate certain products (stem cells, dietary supplements, e-cigarettes) have been met with public outcries in some cases — and with countermeasures led by interest groups meant to undermine the agency in others. A recent Supreme Court decision limiting federal regulatory powers will only make this problem worse.

The F.D.A. should be doing everything in its power to reverse this erosion of trust. It can start by drawing much more attention to the harms caused by untested products and then working aggressively to hold the purveyors of those products to account. Class-action victories against snake oil salesmen are great. But the goal should still be to protect patients before they are harmed, not just to compensate them after the fact.

An earlier version of this article misidentified the campus of the University of California where Paul Knoepfler works as a scientist. He is at the Davis campus, not Irvine.

How we handle corrections

Katherine Miller

Opinion Writer and Editor

Once a Running Mate Is in Place, Harris Can Go Full Speed

Every Monday morning on The Point, we kick off the week with a tipsheet on the latest in the presidential campaign. Here’s what we’re looking at this week:

Obviously the biggest thing coming is that Kamala Harris is expected to announce her running mate early this week. Though each day of the past month or so has felt very long, it’s pretty wild how fast things have changed and how compressed the timeline has been for Democrats to nominate a candidate, cut new ads, vet a vice-presidential slate and presumably re-plan major parts of the convention, which begins Aug. 19.

Harris and her running mate will hit seven rallies in five days. They start in Philadelphia, then go to Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia (this time, Savannah), Arizona and end on Saturday in Las Vegas. That will be her second appearance in two weeks in Georgia — a state that looked pretty rough for Biden this summer. There hasn’t been a big TV interview with Harris yet, but it’s also possible she and the running mate would sit for one.

As of now, Donald Trump has one rally scheduled in Montana, to support Tim Sheehy’s bid for Senate in the state against Jon Tester. But it’s always possible they’ll add more for him or especially for JD Vance, who’s traveled a lot in the last few weeks.

By Friday, lawyers for the government and Trump are supposed to submit proposed schedules for how to proceed in the federal Jan. 6 case, with a status hearing set for next week. Although it remains very unlikely a full trial would proceed any time soon, Judge Tanya Chutkan now has to decide how to implement the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling in a hearing to determine which allegations concerned official acts of the presidency.

As our newsroom colleague Alan Feuer pointed out , “It remains unclear at this point whether Judge Chutkan will rely solely on written briefs from the two sides or whether she will schedule a more substantial hearing to consider evidence, perhaps from witnesses involved in the case, in what could resemble a mini-trial.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Three Ways of Meeting Oppression
Martin Luther King, Jr. Three Ways of Meeting Oppression Three Ways of Meeting Oppressionby Martin Luther King, Jr., PhD Oppressed people deal with their oppression in three characteristic ways. One way is acquiescence: the oppressed resign themselves to their doom. They tacitly adjust themselves to oppression, and thereby become conditioned to it.
Three Ways of Meeting Oppression Essay
Get a custom essay on Three Ways of Meeting Oppression. One example of this can be seen in today's social institutions wherein in one way or another people still adhere to practices related to competition and competitive behavior wherein society today is often described as a "dog eat dog world" defined by inter and intra social ...
"The Ways of Meeting Oppression": a Critical Analysis
In his essay ' The Ways of Meeting Oppression, ' Luther King Jr. discusses the various methods through which individuals can respond to oppression. He explores the psychological and emotional impact of oppression and offers insight into how individuals can confront and overcome it. This essay aims to provide a critical analysis of King's essay ...
Martin Luther King Jr., Three Ways of Meeting Oppression
How Martin Luther King, Jr. Used Nietzsche, Hegel & Kant to Overturn Segregation in America. Image by Dick DeMarsico, via Wikimedia Commons The influence of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel on the revolutionary philosophy of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels is well known. Marx wrote a critique of Hegel's Philoso ...
The Three Ways Of Meeting Oppression By Martin Luther King Jr.
The following is a sample Summary, Analysis, Response essay about the article, "The Three Ways of Meeting Oppression," by Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks of oppression and oppressed people. He explains the 3 ways on how people deal with oppression. The first is thru acquiescence, which means that they reluctantly accept something without any protest. He describes it as ...
Describe King's three methods of meeting oppression and why he favors
Get an answer for 'Describe King's three methods of meeting oppression and why he favors nonviolent resistance.' and find homework help for other Martin Luther King Jr. questions at eNotes
Martin Luther King Jr.'s The Ways Of Meeting Oppression
The article "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression" (1958) by Martin Luther King, Jr and this published in the Stride Toward Freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr wrote classified of three ways of oppression. He expression of three ways of approach the oppression from the white people. Martin Luther King explain that a people who have been operation ...
PDF "The Ways of Meeting Oppression" By Martin Luther King Jr. (1
Oppressed people deal with their oppression in three characteristic ways. One way is acquiescence: the oppressed resign themselves to their doom. They tacitly adjust themselves to oppression, and thereby become conditioned to it. In every movement toward freedom some of the oppressed prefer to remain oppressed. Almost 2800 years ago Moses set out to lead the children of Israel from the slavery ...
Three Ways Of Meeting Oppression By Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the essay "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression" (1958), a section from the book Stride Toward Freedom, the author Martin Luther King, Jr. asserts that there are three ways that people deal with their condition of being oppressed: acquiescence, violence and nonviolent resistance.
The Ways of Meeting Oppression Essay
Three Ways Of Meeting Oppression Essay. "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression" by Martin Luther King, Jr., is an essay taken from his book Stride Toward Freedom in the year of 1958. In the essay, King describes how oppressed people deal with their oppression in three characteristic ways: acquiescence, violence, and non-violent resistance.
Three Ways of Meeting Oppression
Preview text Three Ways of Meeting Oppression Summary Martin Luther King, Jr. Oppressed people deal with their oppression in three characteristic ways. One way is acquiescence. They tacitly adjust themselves to oppression, and there become conditioned to it. In every movement toward freedom some of the oppressed prefer to remain oppressed.
A Rhetorical Analysis of Three Ways of Meeting Oppression, an ...
Rhetorical analysis for "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression" In "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression," Martin Luther King Jr. classifies the three ways of how people meet oppression throughout history - acquiescence, violence, and non-violent resistance.
Three Ways Of Meeting Oppression By Martin Luther King Jr
In Martin Luther King Jr's writing he writes about three ways people resist oppression, which can relate a lot to today's society also. The three ways he writes about are people accept the doom of being repressed, people fight in a violent way against the oppression, and finally people fight in nonviolent matter against the oppression.
The Ways Of Meeting Oppression By Martin Luther King Jr
In "The Ways of Meeting Oppression" Martin Luther King, Jr. states how people deal with oppression and how effective those responses are. He states that people deal oppression in three characteristic ways.
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This paper, "Martin Luther King's Three Ways to Meet Oppression", was written and voluntary submitted to our free essay database by a straight-A student. Please ensure you properly reference the paper if you're using it to write your assignment.
Martin Luther King's Three Ways Of Meeting Oppression
Three ways of meeting oppression, is a speech that was prepared and presented by the late Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. king was a civil rights activist in the nineteen sixties who is accredited for being one of the biggest leaders in the fight for African American equality. Known for his approach of being civil disobedient, Mr. King delivered many speech's which aimed that we as a people ...
Ways Of Meeting Oppression By Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In his essay "Ways of Meeting Oppression" which is written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his book called "Strive toward Freedom (1958)", he explicates his opinion on the victims of oppression and their reactions in a systematic manner. He focuses his thoughts on victims or "the oppressed people" rather than discussing behavior of ...
Three Ways of Meeting Oppression
📝 As indicated by Martin Luther King Jr. in his essay "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression" it is often the case that people tend to accept the social situatio...
Three Ways of Meeting Oppression
Three Ways of Meeting Oppression Oppressed people deal with their oppression in three characteristic ways. One way is acquiescence: the oppressed resign themselves to their doom. They tacitly adjust themselves to oppression and thereby become conditioned to it. In every movement toward freedom some of the oppressed prefer to remain oppressed.
Analysis of Mlk's "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression"
Oppression and injustice have been prevalent issues in society since the formation of this country. During the 1960's, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a influential advocate for equal rights, especially in the South. He discussed possible solutions to such social issues in his speeches and essays. One essay, "Three ways of meeting oppression," introduces acceptable solutions that can be ...
Three Ways Of Meeting Oppression Essay
"Three Ways of Meeting Oppression" by Martin Luther King, Jr., is an essay taken from his book Stride Toward Freedom in the year of 1958. In the essay, King describes how oppressed people deal with their oppression in three characteristic ways: acquiescence, violence, and non-violent resistance.
The Three Characteristics Ways of Meeting Oppression
He divides these ways and classifies each ranging from the ineffective to the most effective way of meeting oppression. In his examination, King characterizes acquiescence, violence, and nonviolent resistance as the three characteristic ways of meeting oppression. First, King describes acquiescence as the most passive and ineffective ...
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The researchers outline when and how to do that in a way that builds stronger relationships, teams, and organizational culture. ... this meeting is a little tense," you could just see the steam ...
Three Ways Of Meeting Oppression Essay
Many common problems and issues are forms of oppression that people do not even realize it is. In the face of oppression, the natural responses that people would have are stated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. : violence, acquiescence, and nonviolent resistance . Although there are countless ways in which people can respond in a situation, for ...
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